François Truffaut directs Isabelle Adjani, Bruce Robinson and Sylvia Marriott in this true period drama of a young French woman who runs away across the globe to pursue a soldier who spurned her.
Sad and stilted oblivion. We get another beautiful / unhinged lead performance from Adjani. Wow! There is no one else like her. To see someone so china doll pretty and fragile destroy themselves through obsession became the actress’ trademark. She makes Huppert seem warm. This isn’t quite Possession, it even feels a little too much like a limited mini series at times in terms of production values. Told with an icy factual bluntness.
Michael Ritchie directs Eddie Murphy, Charles Dance and Charlotte Lewis in this oriental flavoured action comedy where a private detective specializing in missing children is charged with the task of finding a mystical kid whom dark forces want to eliminate.
Maybe a little too gentle and laid back. There are scenes where Eddie has a cheeky riff but we aren’t seeing his trademark motormouth awesomeness that often . There is action but it isn’t very memorable. There are special FX but they don’t dominate. With everything entertaining so dialled back it is hard to tell what the movie ultimately wants to be. Fills a Sunday afternoon nicely but the bar was very high at this point in Murphy’s career ascendancy.
Danny Boyle and Juan Carlos Fresnadillo direct Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson, Imogen Poots, Robert Carlyle, Rose Byrne, Alfie Williams, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Ralph Fiennes in this apocalyptic survival horror series where the Rage virus spreads through the population of the UK speedily and the infected chase you to death relentlessly.
Filmed on DV cameras, on location in a central London dawn, before commuters and tourists filled it, the opening act of 28 Days Later has lost none of that ominous power. All the threads are already here. The collapse of society. Families who drag you back but keep you human. Scrabbling for connection in a deserted world full of damaged survivors. Relentless fear. Cillian’s star making lead performance is quietly incredible. Gleeson and Christopher Ecclestone are two sides of the same coin in supporting performances of a ‘no camp’ strength you rarely see in horror. The set pieces are judderingly brutal. You forget quite how grindingly intense this all is. And John Murphy’s score, especially the now ubiquitous “In the House – In a Heartbeat” is a hectoring marvel. I love it. I’m so glad they have found no cure for this franchise.
Let’s try to repopulate London. 28 Weeks Later is every bit the cash-in. The unloved stepchild. A replay. Fanfic from the makers of Intacto. The lack of direct involvement from Danny Boyle and Alex Garland is felt. Still Fresnadillo marries Day Of The Dead to this tale of survivor guilt and family bonds. The US military cause more problems than they solve. Whodathunkit? There are three memorable set pieces; the farmhouse opener, a gleeful extended shot of helicopter rotor blade carrion carnage and a H.G. Wells inspired mist of chemical weapons. Not the stamp of Boyle’s entries but a neat enough meat and potatoes stopgap.
28 Years Later though is pretty special. Mainland Britain has become a regreened wasteland. The infected have mutated into various terrifying sub species. A boy leaves the safety and lies of his compound to go on a quest. He meets the outside world and at least two survivors tinged with insanity. Fiennes is glorious here as the enigmatic doctor defined by fire and skulls. It will ultimately be a movie remembered for its dangling prosthetic zombie cocks and THAT delirious cliffhanger ending. But I found it so incredibly soulful for a horror, while unpretentious for an elevated horror. After the first act the terror sequences ease off, and the overwhelming editing montages normalise (and you get used to Jodie Comer doing another of her extreme accents) but none of this holds the full fat experience back. On first watch I loved it!
Boyle has always had horror in his heart. Shallow Grave, crawling dead babies, crispy skinned sunshine addicts. It almost is a shame when he gives up on his strengths and makes something staid and workmanlike like Yesterday or Steve Jobs. What he is fantastic at is taking our humdrum world and turning it into an expressionistic shared experience. Modern pop music thrums us along while we taste the fantasy in every character’s mind. Go through ‘it’ with them. And it isn’t just the chases that makes our pulse beat as fast the protagonists. Sure, we share their dry throat and fear keenly. Boyle pummels us with allegorical clouds of crows, fire sparks dancing in the sky, Young Fathers smothering us in the soundscape. He envelops us in heightened style, making his best movies a rare communal dream. Or, here, in this series, a never ending nightmare. Time Didn’t Heal Anything.
John Maclean directs Kōki, Jack Lowden and Tim Roth in this period thriller where samurai’s daughter finds herself being pursued across the Scottish Highlands by a gang of murderous thieves.
Very Alex Cox. A few neat moments but often interminable. The kinda movie you want to love for what it is but feels like a lifeless exercise for swathes. Even Tim Roth is subdued. Lush sparse production design and Robbie Ryan lensing.
Stuart Gordon directs Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton and Jessica Dollarhide in this gothic horror where a man travels to Italy with his family to live in the castle they have recently inherited yet soon begins to suspect that they are not the only occupants.
Re-Animator reunion. Awkward Jeffrey Combs explicit sex scene. Plot is a little too dripfed but when the horror does show up eventually it is bloody and disturbing. Scary creature, cute final blind girl. Why is this her only movie?
James Mangold directs Timothée Chalamet, Edward Norton and Scoot McNairy in this musical biopic of Bob Dylan where he arrives in Manhattan, leapfrogs over various musical icons, humps and dumps a few undeserving ladies then ‘goes electric’.
What a self-centred bastard man genius! Did Chalamet hold this back for me? Of course, he fucking did. If you are going to cast someone as an annoying enigma who disappears into his own hype…. I guess, it actually is on-the-nose casting. Inspired me to revisit some Bob Dylan albums after, so there’s that. Mangold is a more than capable pair of hands for this. It ain’t Walk The Line, the times do change at a fair clip without feeling like a carousel slideshow. The supporting cast is superb (Norton, Elle Fanning, Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash). There is a five star sequence where everyone is watching Dylan onstage and you can emphasise with the personal schism his music and genius is causing in each and every individual. That’s the masterpiece. The rest is just fine.
Wes Anderson directs Benicio Del Toro, Mia Threapleton and Michael Cera in this whimsical drama where a global wheeler dealer tries to pull off his biggest project yet.
Whimsy, THAT look, magnificent ensemble, pretensions. But it does feel like Anderson is running on empty with this overly familiar, often impenetrable rehash of his hits.
Stanley Donen directs Deborah Kerr, Cary Grant and Robert Mitchum in this romantic farce where an impoverished lord of a stately home knows his wife is starting a love affair with an American tycoon.
Silly but witty bed hopping farce with a memorable sozzled and catty support turn from Jean Simmons. Spits right into the face of the Hays Code without breaking any rules… seemingly.
Tibor Takács directs Stephen Dorff, Christa Denton and Louis Tripp in this horror where three young teens unlock a portal to hell in their back garden.
Your parents faces rip off to reveal goo. A lumbering zombie falls and turns into multiple sluggy mini minions. Your sister is dragged into hell through a closet wall. This was a formative horror watch for me, probably the first VHS horror I watched in its entirety. So the unsettling moments have stayed with me. I wasn’t massively into horror back then but now it probably is my favourite of the genres. The practical FX work here is a real magic show. Stop motion, forced perspective. The in-camera tricks when they come really dazzle. Shame that the pace is so deathly slow and the kids’ lives are more depressing than aspirational. A bit of a downer on a long time coming rewatch.
6
Perfect Double Bill: The Gate II: The Trespassers (1990)
David Zucker directs Trey Parker, Matt Stone and Yasmine Bleeth in this sports comedy where two losers invent a dumb sport that takes the world (America) by storm.
Being nasty is the goal. Seemingly advertised on the back of every comic book I bought in the late Nineties. Idiotic and charmless. South Park creators Parker and Stone were right to stick to animating, they ain’t got much onscreen like-ability. The movie bats about 1 actual laugh per a hundred jokes. I’m not sure if this is intentionally spoofing the SNL movie vehicle formula? Cleaves pretty close, but to pastiche an already self aware comedy model… pointless.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 